I've recently discovered how easy and inexpensive it is to make great pizza on the grill, and I'm going to show you how.

The Dough

My original thought was to make the dough in large batches and freeze it in smaller sized batches ideal for a single pizza. It turns out that this dough is so easy to make that it's not worth the 'big-batch-and-freeze' approach. This recipe will make one 12-16 inch pizza crust depending upon how thick or thin you like your crust.

Dissolve the sugar, salt, and yeast in the water. Add the flour and Pizza Dough Flavor. Roughly mix the dough until it is just starting to stick together. At this stage the dough may look too dry and you'll be tempted to add some additional watter. Don't.

Lightly dust the countertop with flour and put the dough out onto the coiunter. Start kneading. In a minute or two the dough wil quickly transform from appearing too dry to being rather sticky. Add a tiny little bit of flour at a time until it's no longer too sticky to handle. When I do this I'm addig a couple pinches of flour and then rubbingit over the surface of the dough. After about 5-8 minutes of leasurly kneading you should have a nice elastic dough. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let wrise for about an hour.

Mix the ingredients in a bowl and set aside. This recipe makes enough for two pizzas.

Assembly

Preheat the grill. I turn mine on high and wait until the thermometer in the lid registers 650F.

Use a polling pin to roll the dough out to the desired size and thickness. Sprinkle the surface of the of a pizza peal or platter with semolina flour (This keeps the dough from sticking to it). Slide the crust onto it.

Slide the pizza dough onto the grill. My grill gets hotter in the back so after 30 seconds I flip the dough around front-to back.

After a total of one minute take the crust off the grill. If you like a chewier crust then flip the dough over and place it back on the grill for another minute. If you like a crispier crust then don't flip it over. (This sounds counter-intuitive, I know.)

Spread the sauce over the crust sparingly. The first time I made a pizza it turned out soggy becase I used too much sauce. Add ingredients as desired such as:

I was thumbing through Impossible to Easy by Robert Ervine and saw a recipe for Lobster and Brie Quesadila. It became the springoard for my Salmon and Brie Quesadilla. Other than the brie and the tortilas, there isn't much in common between my recipe and Irvine's.

My choice to add carmelized onions and bell pepper was fortuitous. They added an additional dimention to the taste. Sweet Lady Wife says it would have been 'blah' without them.

Makes 2 quesadilas

4 10-inch (approximate) flour tortilas

1 large sweet oniion

1 green bell pepper

1 lb salmon filet

6 oz brie

Preheat the oven to 350F. thinly slice the onion. core and slice the bell pepper. Caramelize the onion . Saute the bell pepper until it is tender.

Heat some olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Place the salmon fillet skin side up in the pan and cover. Let cook for approximately 3 minutes. When the salmon has cooked enough that is easily releases from the pan it is time to turn it over and once again cover. Monitor the salmon closely. The instant it flakes and has lost it's translucency it is time to remove it from the pan. (The salmon is going to be in the oven for about 10 minutes, so even under-cooking it on the stovetop is desirable.)

Lay a tortilla on a non-stick baking sheet. Spread about half the onion-bell pepper mixture out on the tortilla. Use a fork or small paring knife to flake the salmon and lay the flakes on top of the onion-bell pepper mixture. Space the salmon pieces closely but do not overlap..

Slice the brie and lay the slices on top of the salmon. Be liberal with the brie, spacing the brie pieces close together. Place a second tortilla on top.

Put the quesadilla in the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the brie has melted.

Remove the quesadilla from the oven. Use a pizza cutter to cut the quesadilla into 6-8 pieces.

We find that one quesadilla serves two people nicely. As an appetizer it would probably serve four.

There are a few spices that that I tend to use a lot of - minced garlic, minced onion, salt, pepper, paprika - to name a few.

I've discovered a great source of most spices at prices significantly less that what your supermarket charges: The Spice Barn.

The Spice Barn was recommended to me when I started making my own sausage and needed spices and seasonings in larger quantities. They offer spices in containers ranging from a small table-top shaker up to about 50 pounds. - all for a lot less than you are paying at the grocery store.

I started keeping track of the spices and seasonings I use frequently, and then purchase a year's worth of each at a time.

I put my new deep fryer to use making beer-battered deep-fried catfish.

My motivation for getting a deep fryer is that I want to make donuts but I also started looking into al the other things I can make with this thing. My Sweet Lady Wife is a former Wisconsin girl who remembers those Friday night fish fries from her childhood. So when I mentioned deep fried fish her eyes lit up and that settled it.

I'd like to use yellow perch or haddock but this is Arizona. Finding perch or haddock here is mission impossible. Finding catfish however is not so hard. This catfish came from Whole Foods.

Batter:

2 cups all purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon garlic paowder

1 tablespoon smoked spanish sweet paprika

1 16-oz can of Fosters Premium Lager

2 egg whites

Note: if you have self-rising flour you can substitute 2 cups of it for the first three ingredients.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and beer. Let it set in the refrigerator for an hour. When the hour is up, beat the eggs whites until you get soft fluffy peaks, then carefully fold them into the flour-beer mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add the required amount of oil to the deep fryer and turn it on 375 degrees. When it hits that temperature place the fish into the hot oil. When the batter has turned a light golden brown (about 2-3 minutes) take the fish out and let it drain for a minute or two, then serve.

Very light crust and very moist fish. It passed the Sweet Lady Wife quality test.

When my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I pointed to this deep fryer.

(Coming soon: Beer-Battered Deep fried Catfish.)

This is a Cuisinart CDF-100 deep fryer. I've been wanting on because I have this overpowering urge to make my own donuts. But there are lots of other things I want to do with it. For example, my wife is a former Wisconsin girl, so when I mentioned fish fry her eyes lit up. Ever had a Scotch egg? They are easy to make.

I picked the Cuisenart CDF-100 because it requires just a quart of oil. I'm typically cooking for just my wife and myself so the small size is perfect.

I tried it out a few days ago and it seems to work very well, keeping in mind that fact that you are frying in small batches. There is a filter in the lid so the house does not fill up with the smell of hot oil. It can easily be drained (There is a small indentation in one corner of the housing. After the oil cooled, I just poured the oil out into a jar through a funnel.)

My mother is 85 years old, on a fixed income, and currently does not drive. I'm making sure that she has good tasty healthy meals for dinner. My objective is not to provide every meal on a ongoing basis but to at least provide her with about half her dinner meals.

Today my local supermarket had some very tasty whole farm-raised salmon filets on sale. I bought two and cut them crosswise into single-serving portions. Sauteing all that salmon took maybe an hour.

That same local supermarket carries a brand of 'fresh' pasta in the deli, 'Pasta Prima'. The list of ingredients on the package reveals no unpronounceable long words or anything I would not feed my family. (Honestly, it's hard to justify making homemade ravioli when I can get these.

And then add a little pesto.

I packaged these up in single-serving portions and vacuum-baged them using my Vacmaster. In a day or two I will deliver to her ten frozen individual high-quality healthy meals.

A couple of years ago a good friend introduced me to Lock&Lock storage containers (Thank you, Kitty). Slowly I'm converting my entire pantry over to using them. I like them because they are airtight, stackable, have wide mouths, and are aldo freezer safe (I keep my yeast on one in the freezer).

10 pounds of homemade pork breakfast sausage, ground and stuffed by yours truly and his Sweet Lady Wife. I used my new VacMaster Pro305 to vacuum bag these up in pairs for freezing.

One of the great things about making your own sausage (aside from the significant money savings) is that you can tailor the flavor to your liking. For example, I put in less pepper than you would normally find in breakfast sausage.

The Tools

I have an LEM #8 Meat Grinder. Among the sausage-making cognoscenti this is considered a small grinder but to me it's big. It's overkill for this job but I have the 'Tool Time Tim' gene. I have successfully ground pork using just one of those hand-crank grinders that clamps to the counter.

I have this sausage stuffer purchased from SausageMaker.com. It is the smallest sausage stuffer they offer. My 'Tool TIme Tim' gene keeps wanting me to get one of the big ones but in reality this one is perfect. It holds five pounds of ground pork.

When I make sausage my Sweet Lady Wife and I work together. She turns the cranks and I feed the sausage into the casings.

Casings

I order casings from the Syracuse Casing Company. I prefer nice big fat sausage (about the size of bratwurst or Italian sausage so I get the 32/23mm North American Hog Casings, Dry Salt Pack Tubed.

Seasonings

SausageMania.com has a great spreadsheet you can download. It contains recipes for several sausage varieties and it will do the calculations for you.

One of the great things about making your own sausage is that you can adjust the seasonings to fit your own personal tastes. Call it 'Designer Sausage'. Here is my seasoning mix for 10 pounds of pork:

If you don't know about the Spice Barn you should. You can buy spices from them for a fraction of what you pay in the supermarket.

The Pork

Almost all the varieties of sausage I make is pork shoulder. I get it in the bulk pack (15-20 pounds) at COstco but I have also seen it as Safeway. One important thing about sausage: You want the pork for have a high fat content, around 25%. Skip over the trimmed lean pork shoulder and head for the cheap fatty stuff.

I cut the pork shoulder up into hunks about 2 inches across because that feeds nicely into the grinder. Once all the pork has been ground I dump the bowl if spices in and mix thoroughly using my hands. Mix. Mix. Mix. You don't want any pockets of spices in there.

Then I pack 5 pounds into the stuffer, my wife turns the crank, and I feed out the casings. It's actually very easy. Some people twist the sausage into links as it's coming out of the stuffer but I find it easier to let the sausage fill the casing in one long continuous tube, then go back and twist it into links. I make each link about 4-5 inches long, about the width of my fist. It;s pretty simple: pick the spot. PInch where you want the ends of the link to be, and then twist the link 4-5 times.

When I've made all the links I then go back and cut them apart with a pair of scissors. I bag them up in pairs and freeze them.

The Vacmaster PRO305 has arrived. I ordered it from VancuumSealersUnlimited.com. Lisa (the owner) was super helpful. I was looking at three different sealers, it was down to the Weston 2300 or the Vacmaster PRO 305. Lisa helped me figure out that the Vacmaster was the best choice. I was really impressed with LIsa. Talking with her, I got the impression she lives and breaths for vacuum sealers and is happy to give you whatever level of assistance you need.

While the Weston 2300 has a longer sealing bar (15 inches vs the VacMaster's 12 inches), this was actually a 'minus' for me. It mean that the Weston was bigger and I really didn't have a storage spot it would fit in.

The Vacmaster PRO 305 has an accessory port for use with jars. I'm particularly interested in using it for marinating prior to grilling. The Weston does not have an accessory port.

The Vacmaster has a double seal strip while the weston has just a single seal strip.

I also like the fact that it comes with a maintenance kit, consisting of gasket, sealing tape, and sealing wire. In other words, this is not only a machine that is repairable, you get the spare parts.

I sealed a variety of items just to get a feel for it compared to my old Foodsaver. It seals faster, sucks out more air, and the seal is wider.

VacuumSealersUnlimited.com is also a great place to by the bags and rolls. I bought 100 of the Quart-sizze premium bags for $19.95. They are better quality than the Foodsaver bags I have been buying and half the cost.

I have no connection to VacuumSealersUnlimited, but I wholeheartedly recommend them if you are looking for a vacuum sealer. This thing is made so well it will probably be the last sealer I will ever have to buy.

My Foodsaver vacuum sealer is on it's last legs. Time to replace it before it dies completely. If you've been reading this blog for a while then you know that I am a 'tool guy'. Here are the sealers I am currently considering:

Vacmaster VP115

The Vacmaster 115 is the one I really want. There are two kinds of vacuum sealers:

Chamber Sealers, where you place the bag inside the machine's internal chamber.

Suction Sealers, where the bad is outside the machine. The FoodSaver and Seal-a-Meal are suction machines

Chamber sealers are better. The pull more air out of the bag than suction sealers. They also handle soups and other liquids. Commercial vacuum sealers are chamber sealers.

The Vacmaster VP115 is a chamber sealer. It has only two problems:

It's big: 19.25 x 16.75 x 9.5 inches

It's heavy: 58 pounds

I don't want to leave it on the counter top and consume valuable counter space (And Sweet Lady Wife wouldn't allow it anyway). Which means it will need to be put away between uses. 58 pounds is just too dang heavy to be moving around. And there is only one kitchen cabinet large enough to hold it.

Weston 2300

This is probably the best suction sealer available. It's not heavy (about 18 pounds). Dimensions:

22.5 x 12.25 x 6

Plus: It will handle bags up to 15 inches wide

Minus: No accessory port for sealing jars, marinade containers, etc

Its also kinda big. I'll have trouble finding a place to store it.

Vacmaster Pro305

This is the one I'll probably actually buy. It looks and operates just like the Weston 2300 above, except that it is smaller. It will handle bags up to 12 inches wide. It has an accessory port for sealing jars, marinade containers, etc. And it is compact:

15 x 12 x 4 inches

Which means it will fit in the same spot that my old foodsaver currently occupies. I can't find head-to-head reviews between the Weston and the Vacmaster. The folks over at The Smoking Pit have one, have reviewed it, and seem to like it.

Rub it all over the tenderloins, wrap them up in cling wrap and let them marinade in the refrigerator overnight. Take them out of the fridge about an hour before you are going to throw them in the smoker.

I used Mesquite Bisquettes in my Bradley Smoker this time, Set on about 225 degrees. When the internal temperature of the meat hits about 150F slather on the sauce of your choice. For me, when the tenderloin hits 160F it's done. About three hours total smoking/cooking time.

I really like my Bradley smoker. It was not horribly expensive, and it has added a new dimension to the food I serve.

Bradley Smoker + Pork Shoulder = Awesome

Two years ago I bought a Bradley Smoker and have enjoyed it thoroughly. I recently decided to try to make hickory smoked pulled pork and I can't believe how awesome-tasting and easy it was. There is also the evil pleasure of permeating the entire neighborhood with the scent of burning hickory.

The night before smoking, mix the ingredients together and rub the mixture all over the pork shoulder. Put the pork shoulder in a Ziploc back or wrap with cling wrap and refrigerate overnight.

BBQ Sauce

I confess: there is a BBQ restaurant neary named Waldos. I have yet to be able to top their sauce. Fortunately, they sell their sauce by the pint and quart.

Pork Shoulder

I bought a 6 pound bone-in pork shoulder at Safeway for about $15. WHen shopping for pork shoulder bypass the ones that have been well-trimmed and are vry lean. Go for the inexpensive fatty ones. One the moring of smoking day fire up the smoker. Set the temperature control on the smoker to 220-250F, load it with hickory bisquettes. Take it the pork shoulder out of the refrigerator and let it sit on the kitchen counter for about an hour.

Put the pork shoulder in the smoker and forget about it for 8-12 hours.

Using an instant-read thermometer (I really like my Thermoworks Thermapen), you are looking for an internal temperature of about 195F. Normally, I think of well-done pork as having a temperature of about 160-170F. When I checked after eight hours of smoking and found it to be !95F I thought "Oh no, I've ruined it." Nope. It was the most tender and juice thing I'd ever cooked.

Since then I've learned that 195 F is when the meat is at it's most tender and juicy. You should be able to easily wiggle the bone. If there is no bone then stick a fork into it and you should be able to rotate the fork with little resistance.

At that point, it's time to pull it out of the smoker, put it on a plate, and let it rest and cool down enough for you to pull it apart. I'm probably going to buy a pair of Bear Claws to make this job easier.

This is such an easy way to turn a cheap cut of meat into food for the gods. I'm going to be doing this a lot more.

I've become a bit fixated on saffron since discovering paella, and am finding lots of uses for it. The problem of course is that saffron is expensive. The last time I bought it in my local supermarket, a .06oz bottle was $22. Ouch.

Spanish Saffron

Everyone wants Spanish Saffron. It's supposed to be the best. I got news for you: Spain exports about 190,000 kilos of saffron each year. The annual native saffron production in Spain is only 1,500 kilos. Which means that it is highly probably that your 'Spanish' saffron came from somewhere else. Probably Iran, since Iran produces about 90% of the world's saffron.

Afghan Saffron

For several years, there has been a campaign to move Afghan farmers from growing opium poppies to growing saffron. This program has been quite successful. Afghan saffron is very high quality.

Via much digging, I've found a source of Afghan saffron that - while the company is in San Francisco - seems to be as close to the importer as you can get. The bottom line is that you can get high quality saffron at prices drastically cheaper than at your local supermarket.

Did you know there is an ISO standard that sets standards for the quality of saffron? I didn't either. According to ISO 3632, Category I saffron (the higheat quality) must meet certain minimum scores. Here are the ISO minimum scores for Category 1 saffron, and the scores for the saffron I received from Vanilla Saffron Imports (The scores are printed on the container's label):

ISO 3632MinimumScore</center>

Vanilla,SaffronImports SaffronI Received

Color

190

242.03

Flavor

70

83.56

Aroma

20-50

36.17

As you can see, this is high-quality saffron.

Price

Now for the best part: an ounce of saffron from VanillaSaffron Imports was $80. That makes it less than a quarter of the cost of supermarket saffron.

This is the (half-eaten) result of my second try making paella. It still needs a few tweeks but the flavor was outstanding and I am pleased.

What I di differently:

More saffron. I was originally advised to use a 'pinch' of saffron. I guess my pinches were to small. I double the amount I used last time.

More salt. Not a lot, but a little more salt. The rice gets almost all it's flavor from the sofrito and broth. Initially I used a no-salt chicken broth and did not add any salt. This time I added enough salt to make the broth sufficiently flavorful that I would eat it as a soup.